1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an equipment for lifting, transporting and setting down elongate goods or individual goods arranged in a row one behind the other. The equipment is especially suitable for picking up and transporting loads out of space which is limited, narrow, and fixed to various movable storage locations. Furthermore, the equipment may also be used to take over a load from one roller conveyor to another adjacent one.
In particular, the invention provides an equipment for conveying long rows of boxes or other loads arranged in a row one behind the other one, whereby these loads have to be taken out of narrow and space-limited locations or have to be conveyed to such narrow locations. The equipment is also useful in such circumstances where the storage locations are not straight but conveying must be performed along a curved path. The equipment can be designed so as to be able to take over loads that are not received by especially constructed load receiving elements, such as pallets, which usually are easily handled.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Prior art solutions, which solve these problems mostly only in part or not adequately, have been described in German Patent Publication 2'205'505 and 2'509'028 and in the literature (Hepner: "Fordern und Heben" as well as Stocklin, Article in the "Schweiz.Handelszeitung").
Difficult problems have arisen with the known equipment in picking-out packages, boxes, pallets or the like from continuously running conveying equipment like roller conveyors, by means of transverse roller conveyors, or other transverse conveyors which engage between the individual rollers of the roller conveyor and which are raised under the influence of a single arm lever. These pick-out devices need a relative large distance between the individual rollers where the loads have to be picked out, thereby preventing small load pieces to be conveyed with such roller conveyors. A further disadvantage lies in the fact that the load is easily tilted when raised, causing a shift of the load on a pallet which is not securely fixed. Therefor it has already been proposed to use vertically displaceable lifting rails which are liftable through gaps in the roller conveyor. These lifting rails are connected to the main frame of the roller conveyor by linked parallelograms, thereby avoiding a tilt of the load, but resulting in a considerable horizontal shift during raising of the lifting rails and in long distances to be covered.
A further solution to this problem has been proposed by the present inventors in the German Patent No. 2'139'842, to give a construction which comprises two or more lifting rails arranged in spaced relationship transverse to the direction of conveying between the individual rollers of a roller conveyor. The lifting rails are vertically displaceable and are equipped with conveying means running along these lifting rails. The lifting rails are connected to a basic frame by means of two angular levers mounted on each side of said basic frame. The free arms of these angular levers are connected to an auxiliary frame which is driven by a motor by means of a connecting rod and an eccentric disc. The auxiliary frame is of a rigid construction and is moveable in horizontal direction by means of the to-and-fro motion of the connecting rod, driven by the motor and eccentric disc. This construction works very reliably and economically, but needs considerable space below the roller conveyor for the framework and require a quite large distance between the individual rollers.